Russian Billionaire Buys Fuhrer's Favorite Mercedes

Hitler's favorite limo was a dark blue Mercedes 770K. It was located recently by Dusseldorf-based, rare and vintage auto broker, Michael Froelich and purchased by a Russian billionaire.

"The Mercedes sales register shows this 770K [Grosser Series II W150 Cabriolet] model was ordered for the Fuehrer and Chancellor of the Reich in 1935," Froelich told Reuters.

Only 88 of the 1935 model were produced and this specific vehicle has all of the modifications Hitler required, including, "a body made of 18mm-gauge steel, with 4cm thick windows," according to TGDaily.com.

At the time, the car was state of the art. According to Froelich, "it was the best car in the world at the time. Better than the Bugatti, Bentley, Rolls Royce or whatever. It was his favorite car: the one he used most often, which he used for parades."

A middleman for an anonymous Russian billionaire asked Froehlich to track down Hitler's dark-blue 770 K model Mercedes Benz. He learned that Adolf Hitler's original Mercedes was in Austria at the end of World War II, it was later moved to the Classic Car Museum in Las Vegas, and then ended up in the hands of a Bavarian beer baron in Germany.

After the magnate's death in 2008, his widow decided to sell the iconic car and so it came to be in the hands of a private collector in Bielefeld (in western Germany).

The Russian buyer arrived in Germany on a private jet to seal the deal and bought it from the private owner for between $6 and $15 million. It is reported that the Russian buyer has taken the Mercedes to Moscow.

Although the final purchse price is unknown the value of the vehicle has been estimated variously between four and 10 million euros ($6-15 million USD), according to the BBC.